Contributing to Cultural Production

 

Musée de l'Automobile de Monaco, Principauté de Monaco (2019)

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña

Contributing to Cultural Production

What motivates users to contribute to cultural production?

Prof. Alex Bruns, Queensland University of Technology, has stated that “it’s quite difficult to really think of producers and consumers as distinct categories” (The University of Sydney, 2020), especially when it comes to social media and the way people share in media platforms. Though “cultural systems change slowly,” there are moments in which society experiences a “rapid change altering the aesthetic expression of a cultural expression” (Sociology, (n.d.)). And this is the case of how people in social media platforms contribute with cultural production.

What motivates users to contribute to cultural production? There is a full gamut of reasons why content generators produce new cultural content from pictures shared over Facebook or Twitter to blog entries with opinions on Blogspot or WordPress. “Six factors are identified as making possible rapid cultural change. These include changes in law and regulation, technology, industrial structure, organizational structure, occupational careers, and the consumer market” (Sociology, (n.d.)). Following this way of thinking, it can be said that in social media the seeds of “technology” and “the consumer market” are to sprout up and bring cultural production into people’s local media outlets. Here we have sight of what Prof. Bruns has called produsage.

“Produsage refers to the type of user-led content creation that takes place in a variety of online environments such as Wikipedia, open source software, and the biosphere” (What is "produsage", 2020). Based on this definition, the user-led creator is labeled as produser, who is a kind of community curator of information, a collaborative organizer of information, and a developer of a shared set of knowledge (The University of Sydney, 2020). The produser is the consumer on the social media “markets” and whose whetstones to sharpen his/her creativity are the social media platforms. A produser is then a disseminator of cultural artifacts in digital forms.

Finding an answer to the reasons why people get to contribute to cultural production is a wrestling match in earnest! It can be stated that produsers do it to counterbalance misunderstanding. People trapped in some sort of sore dismay may come to the media to contribute with the discussion of a topic they find it is not being well comprehended by others. Produsers may also hover around to propose a different point of view to add more value to an ongoing discussion. As stated before, if these individuals find people wrong in their understanding of facts linked to a current issue, they will try to dispel this so-called darkness in comprehension. With the idea in mind of democratizing knowledge, they may brood over what is being shared for some time and then “produse” something to feel they have contributed with something for the community curation of information.

References

Sociology. ((n.d.)). Production of Culture. Retrieved August 13, 2020, from http://sociology.iresearchnet.com/: http://sociology.iresearchnet.com/sociology-of-culture/production-of-culture/#:~:text=Six%20production%20factors%20are%20identified,careers%2C%20and%20the%20consumer%20market.

The University of Sydney. (2020). What motivates users to contribute to cultural production? Retrieved August 13, 2020, from FutureLearn.Com: https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/ethical-social-media/1/steps/824140

What is "produsage". (2020). Retrieved August 13, 2020, from https://findwords.info/: https://findwords.info/term/produsage

 

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